Marocchino, A. Bacci, A. Biagioni, A. Brentegani, E. Chiadroni, E. Cianchi, A. Ferrario, M. Filippi, F. Giribono, A. Petrillo, V. Pompili, R. Rossi, A.R. JACoW Publishing Geneva, Switzerland 2226-0366 978-3-95450-194-6 10.18429/JACoW-LINAC2018-TH1A03 English 637-641 TH1A03 plasma electron acceleration FEL simulation Contribution to a conference proceedings 2019 2019-01 https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-LINAC2018-TH1A03 http://jacow.org/linac2018/papers/th1a03.pdf Plasma Wakefield acceleration is a promising new acceleration techniques that profit by a charged bunch, e.g. an electron bunch, to break the neutrality of a plasma channel to produce a wake where a trailing bunch is eventually accelerated. The quest to achieve extreme gradient conserving high brightness has prompted to a variety of new approaches and techniques. Most of the proposed schemes are however limited to the only plasma channel, assuming in the vast majority of cases, ideal scenarios (e.g. ideal bi-gaussian bunches and uniform density plasma channels). Realistic start-to-end simulations, from the photo-cathode to FEL via a high gradient, emittance and energy spread preserving plasma section, are mandatory for paving the way towards plasma-based user facilities.